Should
a Woman Serve as Pastor?

by
Dr. Rick McClatchy

The
proposed revision to the Baptist Faith and Message states, “the office of
pastor is limited to men."Current
SBC president Paige Patterson said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times,
“This is a statement from Southern Baptists that our positions and our
perspectives are not going to be dictated by the culture.They're going to be dictated by Scripture. If we stand alone, we'll stand
alone."

There
you have it.Those who believe the
Bible reject women pastors, and those who give in to culture accept women
pastors.Such thinking is pompous
poppycock.Patterson should have
said, “I believe the Bible teaches that a women should not serve as a
pastor.”That would have been an
accurate statement, and I would have defended his right to say such.However, when he asserts that those who support women pastors
do so not on scriptural grounds but rather because they follow the dictates of
culture, he goes too far.There are
people who adamantly support women pastors on biblical grounds.I am one of them and will make what I understand to be the biblical case
for women pastors.

Jesus and Women

Jesus
was very radical in the way he treated women and involved women in his ministry.In order to appreciate what Jesus did, one must understand the culture in
which Jesus lived.

The
Jewish Culture-- In Jewish law a woman was considered property rather than a
person.She either belonged to her
father or husband.She was not
allowed to study the Law.In the
synagogue women were shut apart from the men so they could not be seen.Nor could a woman actively participate in the synagogue services; she had
to passively sit and listen.Nor
could she teach the children in any formal manner.A woman was not required to attend the sacred feasts and festivals.

One
Jewish morningprayer said by free
Jewish men was to thank God that they had not been born a Gentile, a slave, or a
woman.One Rabbi is quoted as
saying not to talk much with women because, “Everyone that talks much with a
woman causes evil to himself, and desists from the works of the Law, and his end
is that he inherits Gehenna.”A
strict Jewish Rabbi would not greet a woman on the street, not even his wife,
daughter, mother, or sister.The
duty of a good Jewish woman was to send her sons to the synagogue, to attend
domestic concerns, to leave her husband free to study the scriptures, and to
keep house until he returned (William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus,
and Philemon, rev. ed. pp. 66-67).

The
Greek Culture-- The Greeks as a whole held a low view of women.There were women priestesses in the Greek religions, but these women were
most often sacred prostitutes.Proper
Greek women were confined to their quarters; they never went in public alone and
never attended public assemblies.Women’s
purpose was essentially to serve their husbands(Ibid. pp. 67-68).

Jesus’
Response-- When we turn to Jesus, it is clear that he disregarded the common
practice of the Jews and Greeks and extended his ministry and message to women.

Jesus,
contrary to custom, talked with and taught women.He taught the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn. 4:27).Jesus talked publicly with the unclean woman who touched his cloak (Mt.
9:20-22).When he taught and fed
the multitudes, women were in the crowd (Matt. 14:13-21 & Mk 6:30-44).When he healed a Canaanite woman’s daughter, he talked to her in public
(Matt. 15:22).He commended Mary
for listening to his teaching when Martha complained that she wasn’t helping
with the housework (Lk. 10:38-42).

Contrary
to custom, Jesus allowed women to be deeply involved in his ministry.The gospels record that there were women who traveled with him to assist
in his work.The gospels do not
tell us all of their names, but included in this group of women were Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph (Lk. 8:1-3
& Matt. 27:55-56).

Jesus
broke with the common treatment of women.

(1)He talked in public to women.

(2)He taught women about religion in public forums and private forums.

(3)He gave women an active role in his ministry.

The Early Church and Women

The
early church, following the lead of Jesus, had women actively involved in all
aspects of church life.In the book
of Acts one sees a church open to women.Women
were praying with the apostles prior to Pentecost (Acts 1:12-14).On the day of Pentecost Peter proclaimed the dawning of a new day in
which God’s spirit would empower men and women to speak and teach God’s
message (Acts 2:17-18).Paul taught
a group of women in Philippi (Acts 16:13).In Berea, Paul taught women (Acts 17: 12).Priscilla was one of Apollos’ teachers (Acts 18:26).Philip had four daughters who were prophets (Acts 21:9).

Paul’s
letters indicate women were deeply involved in his ministry.Perhaps the best example of women’s involvement is in his
letter to the church at Rome.In
the sixteenth chapter of Romans, Paul mentions numerous women in active and
prominent roles in the church. The first is Phoebe who served as a deacon in
Cenchreae (vs. 1-2).Priscilla is
called his fellow worker (vs. 3-4).Mary
is mentioned as diligent worker in the church at Rome (v. 6).Junia, a woman, is a called an apostle (v.7 see NRSV, KJV, NKJV).Three women—Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis—are mentioned as hard
workers for the Lord (v. 12).

In
other letters of Paul, one finds references to women praying and prophesizing in
public worship (1 Cor. 11:5) and contending at his side in the cause of the
gospel (Philip. 4:23).Also, in his
letter to Timothy, Paul gives instructions about women deacons (1 Tim. 3:11).

Coupled
with these examples of women in ministry are three basic theological truths,
which seem to indicate women should be involved in all aspects of the church’s
life.First, There is no indication
that any spiritual gift was limited to men (1 Cor. 12:7-11, 14:31, 1 Peter
4:10).Second, all God’s people
were called his priests without any hierarchy of males (1 Peter 2:9, Rev. 1:6,
Rev. 5:10).Third, all human
distinctions were removed in Christ who united them (Gal. 3:28). Paul believed
that through faith in Jesus Christ all become God’s children--one family in
which those things that separated them were broken down.Now Jews and Gentiles were of the same family, the Christian master now
saw the slave as an equal brother (Philemon 16), and the man now saw the woman
as an equal human being and as a sister in Christ.

In
summary, what does one see happening in the early church in regard to women?

(1)Women were actively involved in many areas–-teachers, prophets,
deacons, apostles.

(2)Women were included in worship and religious instruction as active
participants.

(3)The basic theology of spiritual gifts, priesthood of all believers, and
oneness in Christ all moved toward the idea of women serving in an unlimited
capacity in the church.

Answering the Critics

In
light of all this one may begin to wonder upon what basis do some people want to
stop or restrict a woman from serving as a pastor?There are two major texts that are used, and those two we must seriously
examine.

1
Corth. 14:34-35--Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, “Women should remain
silent in the churches.They are
not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own
husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church”
(NIV).

This
passage is hard to harmonize with the rest of the New Testament where we see
women taking an active role in the church.However, this passage is even harder to harmonize with what Paul said
earlier in 1 Corinthians 11:15.TherePaul said, “every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered
dishonors her head” (NIV).Here
Paul was talking about appropriate dress by Christian women so the outside world
would not judge them wrongly.But
the key point one needs to notice is that Paul here speaks of women praying and
prophesizing in worship.I do not
believe that Paul is so inconsistent that within the same letter he tells women
how to dress when they speak in worship and then tells women to be silent.So how should one understand what Paul says in chapter 14?

There are several explanations.The first one is that verses 34-35 were not originally a part
of the text.The reason some people
think this is because some of our ancient manuscripts (chiefly Western
manuscripts) place verses 34-35 after verse 40.Now whenever you find verses floating around in different places you
automatically wonder if someone added this section to the letter later.Now if these two verses were added by someone else, then there is no
contradiction here.The problem is solved.However,
as of the present that these verses were addedisn’t a certainty, and also none of the early manuscripts omit them.For this reason I think this explanation should be rejected.

The
best explanation is that Paul’s advice here is only temporary in nature.The thinking of this view goes along this line.Verses 34-35 are part of a larger section (vs. 26-40) dealing with order
in church worship.Paul was trying
to bring some order back into church worship.

Apparently,
the women at Corinth were the main ones who were causing disorder in the church
worship service.So Paul made a
temporary rule for this bad situation--until the church got back on its feet
functioning correctly, the women were to keep silent in worship.It is much like the governor ordering martial law on a city that has been
struck by disaster.The martial law
is temporary until things are restored to normal.Paul’s command here is a temporary rule.The ultimate goal is to be like the rest of the churches where there were
no restrictions placed upon women.

Now
some may disagree with that interpretation based on the last part of verse 33.If one reads the RSV, NIV or TEV translations, these versions put the
last part of verse 33 into the same sentence with verse 34.Consequently, the verses read something like this, “As in all
the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches.”Clearly, women’s keeping silent in the churches was a practice of every
church if we accept this translation.However,
the KJV, NAS, and Living Bible separate the last part of verse 33 from 34.Instead, they make verse 33 one whole sentence.The KJV reads, “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace as
in all the churches of the saints.”The
teaching being all the churches have orderly worship, not all the churches keep
women silent.

One
may wonder why the translators can’t decide whether to put that phrase, “as
in all the churches of the saints,” with the sentence in verse 33 or with the
sentence in verse 34.The reason is
that the original Greek texts did not have punctuation.Translators had to guess where the sentences started and stopped.

The
problem with placing the phrase with verse 34 is that the verse contradicts what
Paul said in 11:5.Thus, it is best
to see verse 33 as one sentence as the KJV and NAS Bible does.Also, the fact that verse 34-35 float around in the text suggests the
early readers did not understand verse 33 to be tied with verse 34.

1
Timothy 2:11-12— The second passage requiring attention is found in Paul’s
letter to Timothy.Paul says, “A
woman should learn in quietness and full submission.I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she
must be silent” (NIV).

The question must be asked why did Paul make such a
command?The rationale for this
command is found in a church crisis caused by false teaching.Where Timothy was working was an area plagued by false
teaching(see 1 Timothy 1:3-7).Paul wanted Timothy to combat these false teachers (see 1 Timothy 4).Now I believe these false teachers had made inroads into the churches
through the women, especially the younger women (see 5:11-15).So Paul tells these women in this church where Timothy is
working to keep silent and not to teach in order to stop the spreading of the
false doctrine.Paul says in the
verses immediately following, “For Adam was formed first, then Eve.And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and
became a sinner” (vs. 13-14, NIV).Paul,
evidently, wanted the women of the church where Timothy was working to keep
silent because he was afraid they would deceive someone else as Eve did.Again Paul is giving special orders to meet a bad situation.These orders were not for all churches of all times.

Conclusion

The
Bible teaches that women do have an active role in every aspect of the
church’s life under the leadership of God’s Spirit.The two times when Paul restricts women were under special circumstances
– to establish order and to check the spread of heresy.Paul was trying to get sick churches back into order.

Paul
and the early church did not ever establish rules to limit the freedom of the
Spirit’s work in the lives of women.The
Spirit can work in the life of any woman and lead her into an role in the
church.The church must recognize
the Spirit’s leadership and not develop ruleswhich restrict the Spirit.

I
may have misinterpreted the Bible.I
am not an infallible interpreter.But,
Paige, do not tell me that I advocate my position because I don’t believe the
Bible.Paige, you could tell me
that I misinterpreted the Bible because my culture influenced me to interpret it
that way.However, that sword cuts
two ways.Could it be, Paige, that
your culture, which has always tried to restrict women’s role, causes you to
interpret the Bible the way you do?Is
it fair, Paige, to brand everyone who doesn’t interpret the Bible the way you
do as someone who no longer believes the Bible?Are you always perfect in your understanding of Scripture?